The app is currently pending approval by Apple for sale in the App Store and has its roots in an earlier technology created by Dekko for another game. That title was TabletopSpeed (for iOS), which lets players drive 3D virtual cars around on real-world tabletops.

According to an explanatory post on reddit by portemantho, a member of Dekko, "we built a 3D reconstruction system for an augmented reality car game earlier this year. We thought it'd be cool to use that to export to other things like Minecraft."

A series of images demonstrates how the app works. Using the camera, you can select the object to be scanned. The app then overlays a 3D grid and can switch between the wireframe view and the camera view. When the user is satisfied, they press the "generate" button which creates a .zip file with the object information. This information can then be used to recreate the object in Minecraft using the 16 different colors of wool block.

To get a little more specific on the tech side of things, the resolution is limited to 128x128, and the app is intended to work with the slowest supported device (currently the iPad 2, iPad Mini, and iPhone 4S). The system works best when you're scanning at close range, but if you're hellbent on bringing large objects to life in Minecraft, you can scan them from a distance. The resolution is likely to suffer greatly, however, and you might end up with a cubular mess.

The ability to insert content from the real world into games does have some interesting implications, however. The recent cease and desist letter sent to Mojang, over the use of the trademarked term "Putt-Putt" by fans creating content for their games, highlights the fact that companies might not take kindly to trademarked logos and content being imported and potentially reworked or defaced. There's also the fact that we have seen more carefully crafted penis sculptures than we care to count in Minecraft worlds. An app capable of recreating items from the real world could, therefore, lead to some incredibly NSFW places.

Wired.co.uk asked the App Store if there was any word on the approval process, but we've not heard back yet. In the meantime you might be interested to know there's an app which does the polar opposite and lets you plop Minecraft creations into the real world using augmented reality. It's called Minecraft Reality, and you can read more about it on developer 13th Lab's website.

I've not yet played Minecraft (something tells me I'd get far too addicted), so I'm hoping someone can help me out. What's the in-game scale of that owl? It looks freaking colossal in the screenshot.

. o O (Whatever the scale, cool app idea.)

The article said that the picture size is 128 x 128. I would assume the app recreates the object in the same scale. Your character in the game is roughly 2 squares tall. This owl is probably 128 blocks tall by ~80 blocks wide (rough guess; could count individual blocks but I'd rather not). So yeah, this thing is pretty massive.

As for you getting addicted, yes. Yes you will. And you'll love it. And you'll hate it. It's awesome. And it sucks. But it's worth it. It's oh-so worth it.

EDIT: Okay, so I took the time to count the blocks wide and it's around 40. But I'm probably off due to the owl being 3D so I can't see all of them.

Oh man, I have been doing this for a long time. I used Autodesk 123DCatch to scan 3D objects to mesh/texture files, and then I made a program to voxelize them into a form that can be imported into Minecraft. I put the voxelization program on github if anybody is interested:

This is awesome technology, but doesn't using a scripting program to build something for you sort of defeat the purpose of the game?

I think there's a certain point where things "made" are so massive it's not really reasonable to expect someone to do it entirely in-game. Like the scale model of the USS Enterprise (external AND internal), or the entireMiddleEarth

This is awesome technology, but doesn't using a scripting program to build something for you sort of defeat the purpose of the game?

There are many different ways to play Minecraft and by far my favorite is building things from scratch in survival mode, but as the game becomes more complex with each update, gamers are creating more and more adventure maps.

Adventure maps allow you to create a world for other people to play and with the latest patch and the introduction of sound the development of these worlds is increasing. If you are building a huge adventure world with multiple towns and castles and anything you can imagine it rapidly becomes impractical to build them by hand.

There have always been mods to import CAD designs into the game and this program would further enhance that option.

There are some truly amazing adventure maps out there. If you are interested, the guys and girls at Yogscast play a lot of those mods and can be found on YouTube.

Oh man, I have been doing this for a long time. I used Autodesk 123DCatch to scan 3D objects to mesh/texture files, and then I made a program to voxelize them into a form that can be imported into Minecraft. I put the voxelization program on github if anybody is interested:

Oh man, I have been doing this for a long time. I used Autodesk 123DCatch to scan 3D objects to mesh/texture files, and then I made a program to voxelize them into a form that can be imported into Minecraft. I put the voxelization program on github if anybody is interested:

Sounds cool as an easy way to make rough shapes for bigger projects, since its not too precise, fine tuning is still required by normal means. You still get to experience the all important building aspect of minecraft.

Second Life has had to deal with copyrighted material, and derivative works, being built by users.

One classic example is Gordon Freeman's HEV suit. Even if the suit was being given away for free, Valve was aggressive with DMCA takedowns.

At the same time, Star Trek fans made uniforms and whole starships, with art clearly copied from the shows. As far as I know, it was viewed as harmless fan fic, and nobody seemed too bothered.

Edit: My point being, it's very much dependent on the rights holders.

I guess the difference is that Second Life is run on servers owned and run by Linden (or whoever is in charge of that side of things).

With Minecraft, if you scan in or recreate something in the likeness of a copyrighted design, it just lives on your own server/game. I guess if someone runs a big enough public server that gets enough publicity and has models of copyrighted material on it, some ambitious lawyer could hear of it and send them a takedown notice.